Thursday, December 8, 2011

Journaling Card Tutorial

So I know I promised a tutorial about printing on the Project Life journaling cards and I am finally putting it together. I want to show you two different journaling cards. One simple and one with more "Stuff". Also I have included a Q&A section at the bottom of this post that answers some of your questions.

We will start with the simple one.

JOURNALING
You first want to start out with the journaling card that you want to work with. In photoshop click file, open, and then locate the right journaling card that you want to journal on.

Your screen will look like this.

Now we need to add some journaling. For this card I wanted to tell the story about Katelyn and her playgroup.

Click on the type key on the left hand side(It has a capital T) and start your journaling.

It will look something like this.

Now I do want to add a title for this card so I will pick another font and type it on my title. I underlined it to make it stand out.

PRINTING

It's ready to print. Now there are a few ways you can go about this. If your printer will allow you to feed it through like you would a sheet of paper you can just print it like you normally would. (If your printer can accept the smaller cards and you would like to have me go through the steps for printing leave me a comment and I will make a tutorial on that as well.)

Most of you will have to print this way. There might be other ways you have figured out how to print as well. But this way is the one of the simplest ways that I know. It is all shown to you on the paislee press blog as well. Click here to see the blog post.

******* UPDATED ***** There is a new template for the new journaling cards. (the bigger sized journaling cards. Just look for the new size when you click on the link.

Also you will need to pull up that file in photoshop to add your journaling onto. ***Make sure when you pull up the file in photoshop that it is the one labeled paislee-3x4 journaling card-template. Don't pull up the actual photoshop file. It is the wrong size for printing on a 8.5x11. ***

It will look like this.

Next step is to move your journaling card, your journaling text box, and your title over into the box. The move tool is the very top one on the left hand side. (I realize most of you know this but trying to help the newbies).

Now in reality the first step you would have done was to open the journaling box template first. Then put your journaling card in and your text, and so forth. It will be easier the next time you do this process. And if you do all your cards at once it will be a breeze !!

Now you will have to delete the layer that says "your text here".Also delete the layer that says print guide.(It is the one that has the box on it) So the box won't print out onto your journaling card.

Next is to remove the journaling card. Delete the journaling card layer. **Very important step***

.Again - make sure that you delete the layer that says print guide.(It is the one that has the box on it) So now your screen should look like this. **Very important step***

The next step is to adhere the physical journaling card to the paper with the box on it. I like the mounting square for projects like this.They are easily removable.On the paislee press blog she used double sided tape.

Put your paper through the printer.It should now have your journaling on it.

And now you can slide your finished card into your album.

I hope that has helped answer some questions for you all. It might seem like a lot of steps but it really isn't all that bad and if you journal on all your cards together you can be done super fast. If you have further questions or something was not clear please feel free to ask. Leave a comment and I will do my best to answer.

THE SECOND JOURNALING CARD

I also wanted to show you how I use the digital extra elements and also how I incorporate my other embellishments onto my journaling cards.

I choose this card

I wanted to add something else to the plain card so I choose to add this circle LOVE THIS embellishment from the Turquoise kit.

I do try to stay in the same color scheme for the entire week and that is what it is so great about the digital elements. You can change the color of them, and also make them any size that you want. I moved it to the top corner of the journaling card and change the color to match the green in the journaling card.

I want to now add my title. I wanted the title to be home grown. I have part of a brush with the word Home in it. You can find it here from Ali Edwards.

In this case I just wanted to use the word home instead of the whole phrase which was home = heart. So I used my rectanglar marque tool located on the left hand side. It looks like a dotted line box. Just click on the corner of the image you want to cut and drag it to the other side of your image. I will make a box. And just cut that part out and moved it over to my journaling card. You can see the part that I want to move is highlighted with the dotted lines.

And now it is moved over and in place.

I am going to leave some room on the journaling card for my letters that i want to add. Next I add my journaling.

Hide the journaling card layer or delete it(click the eye right next to the layer and it will hide it for you. Your ready to print. Follow directions from above.

It's ready for some more embellishing or to go right into your album. You see here that I added the letters to my title. Love it and super easy.

Also want to mention that google can be a great tool when it comes to learning photoshop. If you need to know how to do something or where something is, just google it !!

If you need some more hints and help with photoshop check our Ali Edwards website and also Jessica Spraque. They both have wonderful tutorials on using photoshop.

Again. If you have any questions please leave a comment. And happy scrappin'.

**** P.S. DID YOU SEE THAT THE NEW COLLECTIONS OF CORE KITS ARE NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON !!!! GO, GO, GO. ALREADY ORDERED MINE. ******

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q: I want to know what kind of ink you use and price? Also, photo paper? Do you feel it is worth it printing at home? I'm toying with the idea of buying a photo printer. Would love your thoughts.

A: I have the Epson Stylus Photo R1900 Ink Jet Printer (which is now discontinued and the R2000 is in its place) and so I use Epson Ink. I choose to stay with the Epson ink as it is the best quality. They run from 6.00 - 15.00 depending on the color for each cartridge. There are eight cartridges in the printer. My printer is pretty good on ink. For me it is definitely worth it to print at home. For a lot of reasons, I print daily. When I get a few minutes I will go and print a few pictures or a journaling card for my PL album. It is a convenience thing. Plus you won't have any excuses not to work on your album if you have a printer available. I could not imagine not having my printer. It is a little more money in the long run but I don't have time or the patience to be running to Costco every few days with my three small children.

Q:I am getting the digital elements as part of my Christmas present but was wondering if you also will be buying any of the new Colbolt/Clementine products via Amazon and if so how you incorporate both. Thanks!

A:I am absolutely going to be purchasing the new core kit, actually already did. I went with Clementine this year. It was a real toss up between the two though. I plan on using most of the items that come in the physical core kit, the journaling cards, extra cards, and probably the numbers that come along with the kit. I prefer the traditional scrapbooking aproach but love to add some digital elements into the mix. So I will be using the digital journaling cards as a guide for my journaling cards so that I can print onto the physical journaling cards. Also going to be adding the extra digital elements onto my journaling cards. And possibly using some of the digital paper. They are going to be a great mix and so excited about the possibilities.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful in some way. Again. If you have any questions please leave a comment. And happy scrappin'.

21 comments:

Thanks so much for the information. Wonderful tips for sure. Two questions: What font do you use on your jounaling cards (most often) and How do you change the color of the elements (from red to green in your example). Thanks again for all of your help. Love your PL album and your DD pages!

I am using the digital journaling cards. I used to scan then in but now I don't have to !!

The font i use is called courier. To change the color on the circle element in the tutorial simply click on the eyedropper tool on the left side in photoshop. Put it over the color you want to change it to and click. That will change the color, you should be able to see the color in the color box located at the bottom of the tools menu. Then simply click on the colored part of the circle and click. It will change the color and I think you will have to click on all of the red parts of the circle and change them to green. Hope that helps.

As far as your question goes, it is an ongoing struggle that I have been recently pondering and needing a better solution. Have one in mind just need the time to do it and also the time to research some options. Will share what I find. Maybe after the holidays are over.

Antonymous - Let me set up a short tutorial for you. It's super easy. That is one of the reasons why I bought the printer three years ago, so I could print on my journaling cards. (On the original PL when it was Project 365)Look for it tonight or tomorrow.

Hi Mindi! I sent you a message a week or so ago about this but I am still struggling with trying to print on these cards...ugh! I know I am just missing something completely simple but I am following all the steps. I first open the template from paislee press, then my digital journaling card, then I add my text box and type my text. The problem comes when I go to delete the layers. I delete the "your text here" layer, the "print guide layer" and when I delete the journaling card layer it deletes my text with it so all that's left on my screen is a blank page. Any suggestions? Thanks so much! I am determined to figure this out! :-)Leslie

LWase - I'm so sorry that you are having problems. We will get to the bottom of this. A few suggestions first. Instead of deleting the layers try hiding them. Click on the eye that is just left of the layer. That way they will disappear instead of delete. Also if you are still having the same problem with your text deleting check and see if the text layer is hidden or not, after you hide the other layers. Let me know if that solves it or not. Otherwise we can investigate further.

Thanks for all your help Mindi! I hate to keep bothering you. I tried it again and I think the problem is when I open the journal card and type my text, they are two separate layers. When I open the 3X4 template, all those layers pop up (i.e "your text here, printing guide,ect). When I click on my journaling card to place it on top of my 3X4 template then my "text" layer is gone. It's like it is considering my journaling card and text box as one image so when I hide my journaling card, it takes the text with it. Does that make sense?? It's wierd. Something is happening when I "move" my journaling card with the typed text on to that template to make my "journaling layer" disappear. Thanks again for all your help. Maybe I need to take a PSE class!! :-) Leslie

Leslie - Don't worry about bothering me ! I am more than happy to help. I remember when I first got started with photoshop. I would sit for hours trying to figure things out, even just how to crop a photo, to move my text around and such.

Let me try to help and understand. I might just do another tutorial so that you can see all the steps and so we can figure out where it is going wrong.

So when you move your journaling card over to the printing template your text should still be on the journaling card layer, where you originally typed it in on your journaling card. Is it still there ? Or does it go with the journaling card ? It should have a blank background because you moved the journaling card over to the printing template. So at this point there should be two boxes open, one with your journaling and one that has the printing template and your journaling card on top. Then you will need to move your journaling over to the journaling card box.

Or option two is easier. Open the printing template. Open your journaling card. Move the journaling card over to the printing template. And then type onto the journaling card. This way all the layers are separate. Then you can hide the extra layers you don't need.

I hope this has helped some. If not please let me know. I can put another tutorial together for you. Take care.

Hey Mindi! I couldn't figure out how to do this using the template but I figured out a way to do it by "hiding" the card after journaling on it like you suggested and that seems to work for me. Thanks for all your help! Your blog is my favorite for PL inspiration! Leslie

Thank you so much for this guide! I've bookmarked it in early 2012 and I always wanted to try it but I didn't. But this year for my second PL I finally got myself to try it. Thank you so much! Now I can print on my beautiful Clementine cards without having to print the actual digital journaling cards. Saves so much ink!!!

Great tutorial, but there is a set of templates created by www.smpljournal.com that allows users to print right on physical journal cards and the template system requires no tapes or glues to do it. Definitely something Project Lifer's should check out. I recently started using their templates and could imagine not using their templates. I have been able to catch up on my journal cards. Hope this helps.

Where I get my inspiration

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About Me

Hi. My name is Mindi and I am the mother hen to three little chicks. I love to take photographs, maybe too many. Because the other chicks who live with me think I'm a little camera crazy !! I also love to scrapbook and to be creative. A little bit, or maybe a lot, every day ! I hope you enjoy your stay and come back often.